The Transients API in WordPress is a simple method for storing cached data in the database. It allows us to take resource-intensive queries and store them in temporary caches to improve performance. Transients are temporary, meaning that after a specified amount of time, the cached data will be deleted and re-cached, or updated. This quick [...]
View PostQuick Introduction to Action Hooks

Action hooks are used in WordPress to perform functions, or “actions”. They are used throughout many plugins and themes to provide an easy way for users of the theme or plugin to modify the output or the way it functions. This quick tutorial will give you a good introduction into how action hooks work.
View Post add_action, do_action, hookRegistering Custom Meta Field Types for Easy Content Types
Easy Content Types is a very powerful plugin that makes it really easy to setup custom post types, taxonomies, and meta boxes. One of great but lesser known features of the plugin is that it has an API built in to allow users to register their own custom meta field types that can be used [...]
View Post easy content types, meta fieldsUser Submitted Image Gallery – Part 3
In part three of the User Submitted Image Galleries series, we’re going to look at automatically creating our “guest” user account, and process the image uploads from the submission form. This is where our plugin really begins to take shape. After this section, we will get into actually displaying our images on the “gallery” page. [...]
View Post attachment, gallery, image, usersHow to Properly Format and Enhance Your Plugin’s Readme.txt File for the WordPress.org Repository
When beginning writing plugins for WordPress, most developers will publish the fruits of their work in the official WordPress.org Plugin repository. It’s a great way to get into plugin development for your favorite CMS. I started this myself in June 2011 and so far it has gotten me lots of experience on how to code [...]
View Post deckerweb, documentation, readmeUser Submitted Gallery Images – Part 2
In this part of the User Submitted Image Galleries series we will look at setting up our custom image sizes and also the image submission form. In the previous part we registered out custom post types and taxonomies, and setup the basic structure of the plugin. You must be logged in and have an active [...]
View Post featured image, gallery, image, images, thumbnail, usersUser Submitting Gallery Images – Part 1
In part one of the User Submitted Image Galleries tutorial series, I’m going to walk you through the beginning steps of setting up our User Image Gallery plugin. This is a plugin that will allow us to have a user-submitting gallery of images our website. If a user registered an logged-in, they will be able [...]
View Post attachments, gallery, images, usersCreate a Simple Mail Chimp Sign Up Form

In this premium-members only tutorial, we’re going to take a brief look into working with the Mail Chimp API to create a newsletter sign up form for your WordPress site. The final result will be a complete plugin that you can install on any WordPress site to begin accepting email subscriptions to your Mail Chimp [...]
View Post email, mail chimp, newsletter, subscribePassword Protect Taxonomy Terms and All Posts in the Terms
A few weeks ago, AJ Clarke of WP Explorer released a really slick photography theme called Fotos. Aside from just being a great theme, it also has a great feature that allows users to password protect their photo foto galleries. While developing the theme, AJ, who is a good friend of mine, asked me for [...]
View Post custom meta, custom taxonomy, meta, taxonomies, taxonomyCheck if Theme Supports Post Thumbnails
A lot of plugins use the Featured Image feature for showing post thumbnails. My Better Recent Posts Widget Pro is a perfect example. It uses the Featured Image to display small thumbnails of the recent posts in widget areas. There’s one problem though. This feature only works if the currently active theme supports post thumbnails. [...]
View Post featured image, has_post_thumbnail, image